The invention relates in general to body support devices and in particular to a new and useful suit for the support of the body in respect to acceleration forces, which includes pressure bodies distributed among different suit areas and filled with a pressure-generating medium which is supplied from a pressure supply unit.
Such suits are termed pressure suits or anti-g-suits and serve to compensate the loading of the body under acceleration forces, as arise, for example, in the case of rapid changes in altitude in combat flying. By means of specific pressure exerted on the outer body surface, the blood vessel system of the body is placed under pressure. This prevents the blood volumes from dropping, under the effect of the acceleration forces, from the vital brain and upper body area into the lower extremities or arms. To this end, the suit is divided into partial areas which can be strapped around the corresponding places of the body, individually and independently, so that they lie close to these places. The individual areas are connected between themselves to a pressure circulation system which is supplied with a pressure supply unit. The pressure required in each case can be generated in the circulation or even be reduced again by the pressure supply unit. The individual areas of the suit can then either be connected to a common circulation system or individual areas can have their own independent pressure supply circulation system.
Such a suit has been described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,495,316.
The known suits are used for flying personnel, above all for jet pilots, who are subject to large acceleration forces during their flights, especially if, for example, they execute tight curvilinear flights. In order to prevent, for example, the blood plasma from flowing off into the lower extremities in the case of a curvilinear flight, an excess pressure is introduced into the sleeves around the lower legs and upper thighs, as well as into the arm region if necessary. As soon as the acceleration forces subside, the pressure in the respective partial areas is reduced again.
In addition to the body loading through acceleration forces, the pilots are also subjected to intense influences of temperature through direct solarization into the cockpit, thus loading the circulation further. In order to eliminate this loading, suitable temperature conditioning suits are put on. They include flexible tubes which are arranged in a spiral or meander-shaped way and which are sewn into the woven fabric of the suit on the inside and must lie close to the body surface in order to guarantee temperature conditioning through heat conduction. In a coolant circulation system including a heat exchanger, a pump and flexible tube system, a fluid working medium transports the heat away from the body or to the body. (German Offenlegungsschrift 16 10 647)
If the loading of the body through acceleration forces and temperature fluctuations is to be prevented, it is necessary in the case of the conventional suit systems to put on two separate suits, one upon the other. As a rule, the suit lying inside is then the heat protection suit and the outer suit is the anti-g-suit. The outer anti-g-suit can then only transmit the pressure effect to the body surface indirectly by way of the cooling suit. In the case of bad coordination of the pressure effect of the anti-g-suit in relation to the heat protection suit lying underneath, jamming, or at least, constriction of cooling tubes can result which would reduce the efficiency of the pressure applied by an anti-g-garment. Moreover, the application of two separate suit systems is cumbersome for the mobility of the wearer and the plurality of supply connections and lines restrict this movement further. With a reversed order of suits, i.e. first the anti-g-suit and the heat protection suit lying on top, the protection against acceleration forces would increase, yet the tempering efficiency of the heat protection suit would be reduced as direct heat transmission is not possible.